• 11/01/2023
• By wizewebsite
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Czechs are less than a year ago.The blame is Covid, birth rate and migration<

December 21, 202119:51 The population of the Czech Republic is decreasing. At the end of September this year, the Czech Republic had 20,000 fewer inhabitants than at the beginning of the year. In addition to excessive mortality, the decrease in population is also due to a lower birth rate or a significant decrease in incoming foreign employees.Photo gallery4

Fortunately, children in the Czech Republic are among the happier ones. While the overall mortality rate in the country has been rising slightly in recent years (15 years ago it was always around 104,000 per year, in the pre-Covid 2019 year it was over 112,000 and last year it reached a sad record of almost 128,000), the trend is the opposite for children - until 2010, the death rate in the age group 0 to 14 was above 500 per year, since then the three-digit number always has the number 4 at the beginning.| photo: Shutterstock

At the end of the third quarter of this year, the Czech Republic had 10,682,029 inhabitants. This is 19,748 less than at the beginning of this year. "Such a significant decrease in the number of inhabitants can be compared to a situation where an entire district town the size of Beroun dies out," says BHS Chief Economist Štěpán Křeček.

The pandemic plays a big role in the population decline. "The population of our country began to decline rapidly. The number of dead people is alarming. The fact that more people are leaving our country than moving to us is also disturbing. Compared to previous years, this is a fundamental change in trend," adds Křeček.

There are several reasons why the Czech Republic has so many fewer inhabitants. “Pandemic excess mortality is only partially to blame. It manifested itself especially in the first quarter of this year, when the covid-19 infection spread through a largely unvaccinated population. Unfortunately, the Czech Republic followed the deadliest year in its history, 2020, when over 129,000 people died, the most since 1993," says Trinity Bank Chief Economist Lukáš Kovanda.

More to Germany for work

In the summer months of this year, however, the decrease in population was also caused by the fact that the number of emigrants exceeded the number of immigrants. Foreign migration caused the loss of 1.5 thousand people in the third quarter of this year, and such a balance of migration is quite unfavorable from an economic point of view.

Businesses are losing employees due to covid, production is complicated by quarantines

"Difficult conditions the employment of foreigners, for example Ukrainians, which are the key cause of the negative balance, further tightens the conditions on the already tight domestic labor market. It shows the lowest unemployment rate in the EU, and even in OECD countries," explains Kovanda Lukáš Kovanda.

"Furthermore, the Czech Republic began to lose residents due to migration. In the three quarters of this year, 1,535 more people left our country than moved in. This is a fundamental change compared to previous years," adds Křeček.

The baby boom is not happening and the population is aging

In addition, the Covid crisis did not even lead to a higher birth rate, as originally expected. There were 84,719 births in three quarters, which was 465 more than in the same period of the previous year. At the same time, only 182 children under the age of one year died, which ranks our country among the best in eliminating mortality after childbirth.

However, the decline in population causes a lot of problems for the economy. "We feel it most in the labor market, where the change in long-term and short-term migration makes a full recovery of the economy impossible. We especially miss people from Ukraine, who are now often heading to Germany, where they have more liberal conditions for labor migration," says economist Helena Horská.

Better than the Spanish and Portuguese. The standard of living of the Czechs has improved

"Furthermore, weaker cohorts are entering the labor market, so we have a shortage of experts and there is a great struggle for talent. In addition, the average age is also increasing, but the length of a quality life in health remains the same. So, the phenomenon of sandwich families is starting to show a lot, when people who are still supporting their offspring have to cut back on work because they need to care for a sick parent. As a result, it may happen that they do not work full-time at the most productive age in their career, which again contributes to the lack of people on the labor market," says Horská.

Economist Jan Švejnar also agrees with this. "I think the population reduction is perhaps temporary and when covid stops, the situation will improve. However, it is true that our increase based on the birth rate is not sufficient and the retirement age will also have to be increased, as otherwise there may be a shortage of people on the labor market," he says.

Family support is necessary

But according to many, it is more appropriate to address the issue of family support than the birth rate. "As a result, our birth rate is the same or even better than in most countries in the V4 or post-Soviet countries. Abroad, however, it turns out that the birth rate increases especially when preschool care is available for young people. If women know that they can go back to work after a year and can put their child in a nursery that is not overpriced and has enough places, they are more likely to have children," says economist Michal Prokop.

"Another important thing to help population growth is better support for agency workers and their families. A lot of agency workers, for example from Ukraine or Mongolia, live here without families, as there is no education support for the children of foreigners. If, for example, companies that use foreign workers contributed to the education of their children, who will learn Czech and possibly stay here in the future, I think it would be fair," concludes Prokop.

Author: Anna Koucká

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Topics: migration, Coronavirus, Population aging, employees, employment, Helena Horská, Lukáš Kovanda, Jan Švejnar, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Mongolia

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